the wood dove builds its nest in my branches.—Sunday, July 9, in Freder-
iksber gGardens, after callin gat the Rørdams.”
What happened in the time from then up to September 8, 1840—when
Regine, on her way home from a piano lesson, was intercepted by the
youn gtheolo gian who came up to her and proposed—remains obscure,
and in his 1849 journal entry Kierkegaard depicted the period prior to the
engagement with these brief sentences: “Even before my father died I had
decided on her. He died. I studied for the examinations. Durin gthat entire
time I let her existence entwine itself around mine....Inthesummer of
‘40 I took my theological examinations. Then without further ado paid a
visit to the house. I traveled to Jutland and perhaps even then had begun a
bit of fishin g, for example by lendin gthem books durin gmy absence and
by encouraging them to read a particular passage in a particular book.—In
August I returned. Strictly speaking, the period from August 9 into Septem-
ber can be called the time durin gwhich I approached her.”
It is also a part of the story that, at the same time Kierkegaard was infatu-
ated with Bolette, Regine was particularly taken with her private tutor, the
handsome and proper Frederik Johan Schlegel, who naturally was by no
means blind to Regine’s charms. Many people thought that an engagement
of the two must be just around the corner, but instead there was this Kier-
kegaard. “You could have talked about Fritz Schlegel until Doomsday—it
would not have helped you at all, because Iwantedyou!” he asserted when
Regine attempted to explain the matter to him.
For his part, however, Kierkegaard felt not the least bit tempted to inform
Regine that they had a mutual friend in Bolette.
From the Papers of One Already Dead
The story of the engagement is best followed in the letters that Søren Aabye
sent to Regine via a messenger or a servant during the period from Septem-
ber 1840 until October 1841. There are thirty-one letters in all, though five
of these are only little notes that indicated the time or place for a meetin gor
that accompanied a gift: flowers; perfume (Regine loved Extrait double de
Muguet” [French: “double-strength essence of lily of the valley”]; a music
stand; a handkerchief; the New Testament; and, for Regine’s nineteenth
birthday, a pair of candelabra plus somethin gas recherche ́as a “paint set.”
The letters begin “My Regine!” and most frequently conclude “Your
S. K.,” which alternated with “Yours forever, S. K.” and—toward the end
of the relationship—with “Your K.” The few letters that Regine wrote were